Welcome to PROVENCE TODAY, a blog about life and politics in France.
In our search for the ideal place to retire, my husband and I settled in Aix-en-Provence in 1998 and have never stopped learning about this fascinating country that has become our permanent home. While this blog deals with the socio-political aspects of France, my book "Taking Root in Provence" focuses on the pleasures and paradoxes of daily life in sunny Provence.

Wednesday, April 26, 2017

It's over, and the winner of the first round of the French
presidential election is centrist Emmanuel Macron of the movement En Marche! who will face far-right
candidate Marine Le Pen of the Front
National (FN) in the runoff on May 7. With 24.01 percent and 21.30 percent
of the vote, respectively, they eliminated from the race conservative and early frontrunner François
Fillon and hard-left candidate Jean-Luc Mélenchon who obtained close to 20
percent each. Predictions are that Macron will win the second round and become
the next president of France, but if the abstention rate is high (May 7 is in the
middle of a long weekend) and if Mélenchon's disappointed followers vote for Le
Pen because she, like Mélenchon, wants to leave the Euro and the European
Union, nothing is sure.

Jean-Luc Mélenchon

I watched these elections at a friend's house where about a
dozen of us had gathered for the election results and for dinner. One couple
among us had voted for socialist candidate Benoît Hamon out of political
conviction even though he had no chance of winning. This type of sympathy vote
is not uncommon in the first round since you can change your vote in the second
round. But we all remembered the disastrous outcome of the 2002 election when
confident socialists frittered away so many votes in the first round that
far-right candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen (father of Marine) overtook and
eliminated socialist candidate and expected winner Lionel Jospin. A joyous
evening instantly turned somber, to which our hostess had only one answer: she
opened several bottles of Chateau d'Yquem that she had just inherited from her
father.

No Chateau d'Yquem this time, but cautious optimism that
39-year-old Emmanuel Macron will win the presidency on May 7. Given the
scandal-clouded campaign of center-right candidate Fillon, and the sudden rise
of firebrand left-of-the-left Eurosceptic candidate Mélenchon in the latest
polls, the Macron-Le Pen duel was one of the better outcomes we could hope for.
But this was no ordinary election in that, stunningly, the two main ruling parties, Fillon's
LR and incumbent President Hollande's PS, were both knocked out in the first
round.

Five years of President Hollande's failed government have
left the socialist party in tatters (its presidential candidate Benoît Hamon
got no more than 6.36 percent of the vote), and the refusal of a damaged
François Fillon to withdraw from the race in favor of fellow Republican Alain
Juppé has been blamed for the conservative LR party's loss. Voters'
disenchantment with the two main parties was surely one of the reasons for maverick Mélenchon's
strong showing.

Marine Le Pen

Most political leaders, including President Hollande, have
since called on their constituents to vote for Macron (against Le Pen), if for
no other reason than that France should stay in the European Union. But Le Pen
smells victory and is redoubling her efforts, especially in distressed areas
where factories have closed and unemployment is high. Her audience, essentially
less educated workers, traditional, older and risk averse, fears Macron's youth
and is suspicious of his banking background. They are pessimistic by nature and
seek security and protection with Le Pen. She is a high-energy person and a
good speaker whose nationalist message resonates with her audience.

She may be getting some help from Russia (she met Putin in
Moscow last month) according to reports that Russian hackers have targeted
Emmanuel Macron's computer network. Global cybersecurity firm Trend Micro
identified the group as the same ones who penetrated the Democratic National
Convention's network last year and says they may be linked to the GRU, an elite
Russian military intelligence unit. Putin does not want a strong European Union, and
neither does Le Pen. French authorities have been alerted, and Trend Micro will
issue a detailed report this week.

Macron and wife Brigitte

Emmanuel Macron tends to attract a better-educated, somewhat
younger population that is willing to break with tradition and is open to
change. He founded his own EM movement ("neither left nor right") to
have the freedom to promote his personal vision for a stronger, modernized
France, where it will be easier to innovate or start a business, and where he
wants to streamline a bloated bureaucracy. He is a strong defender of the
European Union and of international trade. To counter the argument that at age
39 Macron "lacks experience" his followers point to his four years in
government service, the last two (2014-2016) as Minister of the Economy, and to
the extraordinary feat of winning the first round of the presidential election
after less than six months of campaigning. Before the final round, however, he
still needs to convince the doubters and fence sitters to step to his side
rather than to Le Pen's.

This campaign is not over, but I cannot help dreaming
already of a dynamic Justin Trudeau or John F. Kennedy at the helm in France.

REFUGEE CAMP BURNED

Le Grande-Synthe camp on fire

Two weeks ago, the refugee camp at Grande-Synthe near
Dunkirk was destroyed by a fire, said to have been set by the migrants
themselves in a clash among the camp's occupants. Ten people were hospitalized,
several of them with stab wounds, and some 600 were sheltered in nearby
gymnasiums. Hundreds of others, however, are unaccounted for and are thought to
be roughing it in the surroundings.

According to local authorities, a fight had broken out
between Kurdish and Afghan migrants over accommodations in the camp, with
Afghans complaining that they were housed in the collective kitchens while the
Kurds slept in wooden sheds. This camp of wooden sheds had been built by
Doctors without Borders to house 800 people, but at the time of the fire it
held 1500. The original occupants were mostly Kurdish, but when French
authorities dismantled the infamous Calais Jungle camp in October 2016, it
re-settled hundreds of Afghans in the Grande-Synthe camp which lacked
sufficient wooden sheds for all.

Le Grande-Synthe before

Most of the people at Grande-Synthe want to go to England,
including minors who have family there, and are awaiting visas for the UK or
asylum papers for France. Others are still trying to get to England illegally
and refuse to leave the area for camps further south. Many of those who have
disappeared after the fire are thought to be hiding out between Dunkirk and
Calais for further attempts to cross over to the UK.

As a rule, it is government policy to settle families with
small children first and to house unattached men in temporary camps while their
visa or asylum applications are being handled. In the meantime, these men are
not allowed to work, butwith the help of volunteers and charitable associations they
are given language classes and usually a place of worship. Nevertheless, the
longer they are held in these camps, the more discouraged they become and the
easier it is for a minor incident to spark violence. It is to be remembered
that these people ran for their lives and that they paid a terrible price just
to find safety before returning home when war ends or being allowed to work and
build a new life without handouts. It is a matter of survival and life with
some dignity for the migrants, and a moral and humanitarian issue for the host
countries where, more often than not, especially in northern Europe, the
welcome has been lukewarm at best.

TERRORIST ATTACK IN PARIS

Sadly, the refugee crisis has been displaced by French
elections, shifting tensions in international relations, and continuing
terrorist attacks around the world, including in Paris where a policeman was
killed last week on the Champs Elysées, and two other police officers and one
tourist were wounded. The assailant was shot dead by police. The attack was
soon claimed by the Islamic State, although the gunman, identified as
39-year-old French national Karim Cheurfi, who had a long criminal record and
spent 15 years in jail for attempted murder of a police officer, was not
known to be radicalized. At his death he carried a note in his pocket that
defended ISIS, and the addresses of four police stations in Paris as well as a
Koran were found in his car. French authorities are treating this as an Islamic
terrorist attack and are continuing their search for potential accomplices. No rest for the weary French security forces who have been working under a State of Emergency for too long. And no national security as long as home-grown Islamist extremists pursue their misguided mission against "infidels." Let's hope that the next president will find a workable solution to this problem and, of course, let's hope it will be Manuel Macron!

About Me

About us, rather: Anne-Marie has worked as a translator, teacher, journalist, sportswriter (covering Formula 1 races), and director of corporate communications. She followed her husband Oscar into early retirement in 1998.
Oscar made his career in international development banking and since moving to Provence has become an expert on Provençal cooking.
Anne-Marie has written two books: Ten Years in Provence (2008 - out of print) and Taking Root in Provence (2011 - Distinction Press, Vermont).